Captain Commitment

Captain Commitment

I am fascinated by all the stuff we do, we think, we feel, that we are unaware of. I am serious. I couldn’t believe that when I first encountered the concept. How could I be living my life and so clueless at the same time? It’s why they call it the unconscious mind.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be clueless. I don’t want to be ignorant of what I’m up to. I want to be the boss of me,

There is a whole bunch of new age-y terms for it, mindfulness being the one that seems to be bandied around the most. All that means; pay attention. Pay attention to your thoughts, notice what you are thinking when you are thinking it. If you practice doing that, you will be amazed at what’s going on in your head.

Why can I choose? What makes me aware? Why do I commit?

So the next step is to look at my life. I found it somewhat horrifying, and still do, that we see what we are committed to by looking at our lives. I want to be committed to a peaceful life. Do I see peace or is my life full of chaos? I want to be committed to flowing with life. Do I see flow or do I see drama and resistance? I want to be committed to warm, loving, respectful relationships. Do I see those relationships, or are my relationships full of strife? Are you getting the idea?

I live what I am committed to.

If there is a disconnect between what I want to be committed to and what I am living, chances are really good that the block is unconscious. When we are stuck we often beat ourselves up and say rotten things to ourselves. That’s so not useful. Creative Questions help us change those patterns.

I like to think of this particular Creative Question as a transitional question. It starts making way for us to change; moving the boulders out of the way, surveying the line of sight, grading the pathway and paving the new road to our desired outcome. (Can I write corn, or what!)

How have I changed from living in chaos to living in peace? How have I changed from resisting life to going with the flow? How have I changed from stressful relationships to loving and feeling loved? For example.

One of the bennies of choosing my commitments instead of my mysterious unconscious choosing for me is that I can stop bitchin’ about what’s going on in my life. I can feel like I’m steering my life a bit more. I mean, unexpected stuff happens, but my conscious commitments give me direction.

Taking action is the piece that makes our commitments dynamic. I know it’s a big “duh” but it’s often a piece we miss, and it’s why we are still living the old way. If I want my good parking spot at work that someone has been parking in this week, praying for it to St Dot of the Parking Spot is one thing, but leaving a few minutes earlier is another. So I did both and got my spot. For example.

I want to make sure that my action is going to move me forward to my goal. Sometimes that means I need to get some help. I love the old saw, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” That’s great for playing a musical instrument, but kind of not so great for making fresh changes.

How have I changed from feeling stuck to creating dynamic commitments?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04102015

Pacifying the Drama

Pacifying the Drama

I drew the “Why am I peaceful?” card today and, as usual, it got me thinking. I cannot be peaceful, which I really like, if I am being dramatic. As I have been going through all the chemo stuff, I have been pretty peaceful, and drama has not shown up much, but it shows up when I let me go to miserable. I can’t be peaceful and miserable at the same time.

When I choose to be miserable, because I am annoyed, or tired, or want to be doing something else, I am looking inward at my expectations. When I do that, I clench.

In my qi gong practice, we spend time with the idea or intention of being upright and relaxed. When I am upright and relaxed, it often has less to do with my physical being than with my emotional and spiritual self. I can feel upright and relaxed lying down and curled up.

So often, I find that my expectations of how this moment should be, rather than how it is, can lead me to clenched. I may have expectations of entitlement, or different circumstances, or that I should be feeling something else.

The Truth is, and notice the capital T which means true for everyone, this moment is perfect for me. Perfect. For. Me.

In my clenched state, I say, “What the heck does that mean? This moment sucks.”

Every moment is full of information for us about what we are doing, and how we are doing it. If I can soften up enough, I can notice the bad creative questions I am asking that are getting me the results I am being dramatic about.

Why am I so miserable? A bad creative question that will get answers like, nothing goes my way. I hate my life, I should have more money, friends, fun things to do, productive work, health, joy, contentment, a car, more ease, a better home. Look for your shoulds. They are a great way to beat ourselves up. A transitional creative question can be, “What stops me from having more joy, etcetera?” Or “What gets in my way?” If I am putting that on someone else, I can wonder why I have someone so obstructive in my life, or why I allow them to block me.

That moment can give us information about our blocking beliefs. One of my favorites is that if I have less stuff I will be bored. Really. I just noticed it this morning, thinking about being at my grandmother’s house with room after room of less stuff, and what we did on Sunday mornings was sit around having to be quiet while the adults read the paper, played solitaire, chatted quietly, or even napped. Napped! In the morning. Good grief. I, on the other hand, can stress out about how messy my house is, how the dishes and stuff need washing, and surrender to my sense of overwhelmed and watch old movies while feeling guilty. Huh. Insight.

Why am I peaceful? What makes me take care of myself? Why am I supportive?

Oh, supportive. Supportive of me staying away from the drama, which the preceding belief engenders. Why would I support myself? Why would I care for my environment? Why would I unchoose drama?

The more I practice feeling peaceful, the better the pathway to get there in my brain. When I get peaceful, I get more stuff that I want to finish finished. I make better choices about how to spend my time. It’s easier for me to say no, and I say yes with more clarity.

How have I changed from choosing drama to choosing peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 09142014

The Price of Intimacy

The Price of Intimacy

We are all in it together. At the very least, we have being alive in common. At the most we are deeply connected, one spirit at our core, and at best we are lovingly intimate. In general, we are sliding around somewhere on those continua.

As we choose to grow up, our relationships get nicer and nicer. We find ourselves more intimate, closer, with deeper, more meaningful connections. We care more about each other, it is easier to be aware of each other, more thoughtful, kinder.

We find that we can stop ourselves from saying cruel or cutting or demeaning  things. For me, for example, I stopped using sarcasm as a weapon, and found that I didn’t need to engage in angry exchanges like I used to. We find that we prefer clear communication, and spend some effort to ensure it.

For a bit of mindfulness and awareness on my part to treat you with love and respect, I am rewarded like mad. I am supported. When I need help, you help me. When I want comfort, you are there for me. When I need to be heard, you listen. If I need space, you are respectful of that, and never take it personally.

Wow. That’s sure not like the old days.

How am I connected? Why do I enjoy being with you? What makes me glad to see you?

I manage to think twice about how I say things to you. I care about your feelings. When I was little, I didn’t have much sense of you as an individual, you  were more just there to provide for me. Little by little, I began to understand that you were like me, you had feelings about stuff. You cared about things, you had things you didn’t like, you had a past that didn’t have me in it. I might be the center of my universe, but I was not the center of yours.

Why can I see you? What makes me aware of you? Why do I notice?

Back then, I was kind of wedded to drama. Big emotional conflicts, terrifying pronouncements, lots of thoughtless behaviors that got me in trouble, little trouble, big trouble. I put myself in dangerous situations, got involved with people who had as little awareness of me as I had of them. Poor we.

I pretty much have broken up with drama. We have coffee from time to time, but it’s never very satisfying.

I used to wonder what intimacy meant. I thought there was some mysterious, secret thing about it. And so I would go to my special people, the ones I can talk to about anything, really be myself without fear of censure or negative moral judgment, and talk about it. Heh. Wondering what intimacy is when I am right in the middle of it. Cute.

Why do I choose intimacy? What makes me want to be close? How do I share?

When I have people I feel close to, I tell my secrets. It’s like exchanging my secrets for freedom. I like that. And I like being able to tell you anything.

How have I changed from keeping myself locked up to sharing the real me with thee?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02262014

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3-Part Feelings

3-Part Feelings

I was watching someone yelling at someone the other day, and started thinking about feelings, emotions, and validation.

I have learned some really useful things in all my years of training, research and practice. One of those is that emotions are universal, feelings are not.

Emotions are the physiological manifestation of thought, either conscious or unconscious. Everyone, unless there is some kind of damage, has the same set, like when the doc taps your knee and your leg jerks. Emotions are pretty much hardwired.

Emotions are, very simply put; happy, sad, angry, scared, contempt, disgust, and surprise. That’s it.

Feelings, on the other hand, are not hardwired. They are not universal. They are sklooshy, personal, and often really weird and smelly, based on horrible mislearning, and awful beliefs.

I’m not always comfortable with my feelings, or with yours. And I’m not sure I want you to validate all my feelings, because some of them are pretty messed up.

I mean, if I’m telling you that I feel completely disgusted by what a bad person I am, or you are,  because I, or you, forgot a date, bounced a check, didn’t mail a letter, eat meat/gluten/dairy, ran out of gas, can’t sleep, have a blemish, and so on, do we really want that disgust validated?

If I am screaming at you about anything that isn’t a warning of imminent danger, do I want that behavior validated?

If I am wailing or blaming or shaming because something didn’t go my way, do I want that behavior validated?

Notice that feelings are often three-part; one part emotion, one part justification, one part behavior.

Often, when we ask for our feelings to be validated, what we are actually asking is for our outrageous behavior to be given a stamp of approval.

I was shocked when I discovered that I could feel sad without weeping and wailing and sobbing, that I could feel angry without yelling or cursing or carrying on, that I could feel scared without a panic attack. When I experience my emotions inside, noticing them, acknowledging them without the justification and behavior parts, they move through really quickly.

Experiencing our emotions all the way to the end is excellent. It completes our experience, and we end up clean. On the other hand, expressing them through extravagant behavior ends up creating even more trauma for us, because now we have feelings about throwing the whatever, or shrieking insults at our whomever, or any of a host of things.

The bottom line is this: If I want a happy, peaceful life, I have to be willing to give up the drama. My drama, and validating your drama.

How have I changed from indulging in emotional drama to experiencing my emotions?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights removed 10112013